If you find that disciplining your children and fostering a sense of responsibility in them is stressful or unsuccessful, the use of traditional parenting approaches may be the problem. Why? Because traditional parenting approaches, including using lectures, rewards, and punishments, rely on external motivators to change the child's behavior and aim to obtain obedience and compliance. But telling young people what to do, rewarding them if they do as expected, and threatening or punishing them if they don't are counterproductive, increase stress, and diminish strong parent/child relationships. In fact, whether the approach is telling-based, rewards-based, or punishment-based, the bottom line is that it's manipulation, which is never permanent. All these approaches are something you do to another person and have little long-lasting effect. This is in contrast to collaboration (working with a person). The irony of manipulating behavior is that the more you use it in an attempt to control children, the less real influence you exert over them. Clearly, manipulation breeds resentment. In addition, if children behave because they are forced to behave, the parent has not really succeeded. True responsibility means behaving appropriately because children want to, not because they have to. The challenge for parents is raising a child who will do the right thing even when there is no threat of punishment, no lure of a reward, and no lecture before and after the act. So how do you do that? Following are some parenting techniques you can try today that don't use punishments, rewards, or lectures and that internally motivate children to act responsibly.
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Using the strategies outlined here will help give your children both roots and wings. You will find yourself on the parenting journey to raise responsible children with less stress and more enjoyment for everyone involved.
Dr. Marvin Marshall is an American educator, known for his program on discipline and learning, his landmark book Discipline Without Stress® Punishments or Rewards (http://www.DisciplineWithoutStress.com/), and his multiple-award winning book Parenting Without Stress® - How to Raise Responsible Kids While Keeping a Life of Your Own (http://www.ParentingWithoutStress.com/).
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